Comparisons of the bioavailability of icariin, icariside II, and epimedin C in rats after oral administration of total flavonoids of Epimedium brevicornu Maxim. and its three formulations.

The low bioavailability of insoluble flavonoids in the total flavonoids of Epimedium brevicornu Maxim. (TFE) severely hindered its clinical efficacy exertion. This research attempted to evaluate the promoting effects of pharmaceutical strategies, including nanosuspensions (NS), cyclodextrin inclusion complexes (CD), and solid dispersions (SD), on the oral absorption of active components in TFE.

Tropical cyclone activity over western North Pacific favors Arctic sea ice increase.

Teleconnections between the tropics and the Arctic have attracted a lot of scientific interest. However, the mechanisms by which tropical synoptic-scale systems influence the variability of Arctic sea ice remain unknown. In this study, we highlight the impacts of tropical cyclone (TC) activity over the western North Pacific (WNP) on Arctic Sea Ice Concentration (SIC) using observational evidence and climate model simulation experiments.

Narrative patent review of penile clamp, artificial urinary sphincter, and sling innovation in the management of male stress urinary incontinence.

Background And Objective: Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is the involuntary loss of urine affecting 1-3% of the male population. To manage leakage, patients may try a plethora of penile clamps. and may even consider artificial urinary sphincters (AUS) or sling implantation.

Visualization of Tetrahedral Li in the Alkali Layers of Li-Rich Layered Metal Oxides.

Understanding Li ion diffusion pathways in Li-rich layered transition metal (TM) oxides is crucial for understanding the sluggish kinetics in anionic O redox. Although Li diffusion within the alkali layers undergoes a low-barrier octahedral-tetrahedral-octahedral pathway, it is less clear how Li diffuses in and out of the TM layers, particularly given the complex structural rearrangements that take place during the oxidation of O. Here, we develop simultaneous electron ptychography and annular dark field imaging methods to unlock the Li migration pathways in LiNiMnCoO associated with structural changes in the charge-discharge cycle.

Contrastive voxel clustering for multiscale modeling of brain network.

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides an efficient way to analyze the functional connectivity between brain regions. A comprehensive understanding of brain functionality requires a unified description of multi-scale layers of neural structure. However, existing brain network modeling methods often simplify this property by averaging Blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signals at the brain region level for fMRI-based analysis with the assumption that BOLD signals are homogeneous within each brain region, which ignores the heterogeneity of voxels within each Region of Interest (ROI).

Immunotherapy efficacy prediction through a feature re-calibrated 2.5D neural network.

Background And Objective: Lung cancer continues to be a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, with immunotherapy emerging as a promising therapeutic strategy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Despite its potential, not all patients experience benefits from immunotherapy, and the current biomarkers used for treatment selection possess inherent limitations. As a result, the implementation of imaging-based biomarkers to predict the efficacy of lung cancer treatments offers a promising avenue for improving therapeutic outcomes.

In-Situ-Grown Cu Dendrites Plasmonically Enhance Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution on Facet-Engineered Cu O.

Herein, facet-engineered Cu O nanostructures are synthesized by wet chemical methods for electrocatalytic HER, and it is found that the octahedral Cu O nanostructures with exposed crystal planes of (111) (O-Cu O) has the best hydrogen evolution performance. Operando Raman spectroscopy and ex-situ characterization techniques showed that Cu O is reduced during HER, in which Cu dendrites are grown on the surface of the Cu O nanostructures, resulting in the better HER performance of O-Cu O after HER (O-Cu O-A) compared with that of the as-prepared O-Cu O. Under illumination, the onset potential of O-Cu O-A is ca.

Layered Li-Co-B as a Low-Potential Anode for Lithium-Ion Batteries.

An anode material is one of the key factors affecting the capacity, cycle, and rate (fast charge) performance of lithium-ion batteries. Using the adaptive genetic algorithm, we found a new ground-state LiCoB and two metastable states LiCoB and LiCoB in the Li-Co-B system. The LiCoB phase is a lithium-rich layered structure, and it has an equivalent lithium-ion migration barrier (0.

Templated 2D Polymer Heterojunctions for Improved Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production.

2D polymers have emerged as one of the most promising classes of organic photocatalysts for solar fuel production due to their tunability, charge-transport properties, and robustness. They are however difficult to process and so there are limited studies into the formation of heterojunction materials incorporating these components. In this work, a novel templating approach is used to combine an imine-based donor polymer and an acceptor polymer formed through Knoevenagel condensation.

Phenyl-Terminated Coupling Interface Enabled Highly Efficient and Stable Multiwavelength Perovskite Single Crystal/Silicon Integrated Photodetector.

The use of amino-terminated siloxanes as coupling interface for perovskite single crystals (PSCs)/silicon integrated devices has been demonstrated to be an effective method toward CMOS compatible optoelectronics; however, it suffers from the coupling stability against the hydrophilicity of the exposed terminal amino groups. In this work, a phenyl-terminated interfacial molecule, anilino-methyl-triethoxysilane (AMTES), is proposed to achieve the effectively galvanic coupling between PSCs and silicon, which can not only improve the device environmental reliability but also lower the surface energy of the silicon substrate so as to facilitate the epitaxial growth of PSCs. Benefiting from the interfacial coupling of AMTES, the obtained MAPbI SC/silicon integrated device possesses highly efficient multiwavelength photodetection properties across the X-ray and NIR range, which exhibits a specific detectivity * of 3.

Sarcopenia: Body Composition and Gait Analysis.

Background: Age-induced sarcopenia negatively affects walking stability and increases the risk of falls, which is the leading cause of accidental death in the elderly.

Objective: This study aimed to analyze and contrast body composition and gait characteristics in those with sarcopenia in relation to healthy controls to shed some light on the prevention of falls in elderly patients with sarcopenia.

Materials And Methods: In this study, 68 community dwellers were scanned by the Hologic QDR-4500A Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).

Simultaneous electrochemical determination of nitrophenol isomers based on macroporous carbon functionalized with amino-bridged covalent organic polycalix[4]arenes.

A glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified by a hybrid, macroporous carbon (MPC) functionalized with triazine bridged covalent organic polycalix[4]arenes (CalCOP) (CalCOP-MPC), has been fabricated and utilized for simultaneous detection of nitrophenols (NP). The obtained CalCOP-MPC were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), cyclic voltammetry (CV), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), which confirmed that MPC had functionalized with CalCOP successfully. Benefiting from the synergistic supramolecular effect of macrocyclic receptor of CalCOP and the excellent electrical properties of MPC, the anodic peaks of o-nitrophenol (o-NP), m-nitrophenol (m-NP), and p-nitrophenol (p-NP) in their mixture can be well separated by the prepared electrode.

Measurement and Evaluation of the Operating Efficiency of China's Basic Pension Insurance: Based on Three-Stage DEA Model.

Purpose: This paper aims to measure the operating efficiency of China's basic pension insurance from 2014 to 2019 in 31 provinces.

Methods: The three-stage DEA model was used to evaluate the operating efficiency of basic pension insurance in 31 provinces.

Results: On the whole, the operating efficiency of China's basic pension insurance was at a high level, but there was still room for improvement.

Simultaneous determination of nitrophenol isomers based on reduced graphene oxide modified with sulfobutylether-β-cyclodextrin.

The present study reports the development of an electrochemical sensor based on sulfobutylether-β-cyclodextrin modified reduced graphene oxide hybrid (SBCD-rGO) for simultaneous detection of nitrophenol isomers. First, SBCD-rGO hybrid was synthesized and detailed characterized. Afterwards, a sensor was fabricated via the modification of glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with SBCD-rGO, and its electrochemical detection performances were also investigated.

DNA origami single crystals with Wulff shapes.

DNA origami technology has proven to be an excellent tool for precisely manipulating molecules and colloidal elements in a three-dimensional manner. However, fabrication of single crystals with well-defined facets from highly programmable, complex DNA origami units is a great challenge. Here, we report the successful fabrication of DNA origami single crystals with Wulff shapes and high yield.

Configuration Analysis of Influencing Factors of Technical Efficiency Based on DEA and fsQCA: Evidence from China's Medical and Health Institutions.

Purpose: This paper aims to measure the technical efficiency of China's medical and health institutions from 2012 to 2017 and outline the path to achieve high-quality development.

Methods: The DEA-Malmquist was used to evaluate the total factor productivity of medical and health institutions in 31 provinces. A fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) was used for configuration analysis of determinants affecting technical efficiency.

Programmable Assembly of Nano-architectures through Designing Anisotropic DNA Origami Patches.

Programmable assembly of nanoparticles (NPs) into well-defined architectures has attracted attention because of tailored properties resulting from coupling effects. However, general and precise approaches to control binding modes between NPs remain a challenge owing to the difficulty in manipulating the accurate positions of the functional patches on the surface of NPs. Here, a strategy is developed to encage spherical NPs into pre-designed octahedral DNA origami frames (DOFs) through DNA base-pairings.

Hollow Electron Ptychographic Diffractive Imaging.

We report a method for quantitative phase recovery and simultaneous electron energy loss spectroscopy analysis using ptychographic reconstruction of a data set of "hollow" diffraction patterns. This has the potential for recovering both structural and chemical information at atomic resolution with a new generation of detectors.

Nitrogen-Doped CoP Electrocatalysts for Coupled Hydrogen Evolution and Sulfur Generation with Low Energy Consumption.

Hydrogen production is the key step for the future hydrogen economy. As a promising H production route, electrolysis of water suffers from high overpotentials and high energy consumption. This study proposes an N-doped CoP as the novel and effective electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and constructs a coupled system for simultaneous hydrogen and sulfur production.